As the first week of negotiations at the so-called “African COP 17” drew to an end and the final week begins, it is perhaps a poignant time to ask: What could possibly be meant by calling COP 17 “an African” COP?

I was walking in the mall with my son who noticed all the Christmas trees when I realized that I do not know why we have Christmas trees.

On Monday the 5th of December MediaClimate held a seminar titled “Media meets climate: A problem or a solution for social movements” at the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard campus.

Friday, the 2nd of December Earth Life Africa held an anti-coal seminar at the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard campus).

New street lighting in Durban represents good luminance and uniformity in LED lighting; will create a more livable city with safer roads, increased security and a comfortable outdoor environment.

South Africa and European Union nations earlier this week announced a massive renewable energy initative, and this was launched in Durban on Wednesday. The South African Renewables Initiative (SARi) is in a bid to scale up and secure long-term funding to enable the growth of the renewable energy industry in South Africa.

The largest ever financial vehicle for the distribution of climate justice is soon to be on the negotiating table at COP 17. International delegates at COP 17 are gearing up to discuss the Green Climate Fund, which requests of developed countries to provide developing countries with “scaled up, predictable, new and additional, and adequate funding” to deal with climate change. Its future might, however, be on shaky grounds.

As countries such as the US, Canada, Russia and Japan push to delay agreement to a legally binding framework for climate change to 2020 - a delay which will likely push our ability to reduce climate change to 2 degrees Celsius out of our hands – it is either sadly ironic or apt (I can’t decide) that COP17 commemorated Youth and Future Generations Day today. The focus of many of the commemorations was on the role that youth had to play in the future of climate change negotiations, and how climate change would affect both today’s youth and future generations.

Oh behalf of Sustainable Seas Trust I'd like to invite you be a to part of the SEA Pledge Action Day! SEA Pledge is a project of SST that will be launched at COP17 in Durban to promote awareness and investment in marine research and conservation.

COP17: The Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL) is running a series of high-level briefings at their Oasis of Fresh Thinking with people who will be commenting on the negotiations as they unfold and giving a business perspective on the leadership challenges for businesses in the sustainability arena.

Plastics|SA, the umbrella body representing the plastics industry of South Africa, was awarded the 2011 Enviropaedia Award for Recycling at the inaugural Eco-Logic Awards ceremony which took place in Cape Town on Saturday evening in partnership with The Greenest Event expo.

A start has been made with construction of South Africa’s first “green” town that in time is expected to operate largely independently of the national energy grid. It will also be the first rural town fully integrated with an existing agricultural component, in this case a professionally run dairy farm, and one in which future food security has formed an important component of the overall planning.

South African president Jacob Zuma has declared his intention to have a decision on Agriculture at the UN COP17 climate negotiations in Durban; while the World Bank is promoting so-called “Climate Smart Agriculture” and carbon offsets as the future of African agriculture and climate solutions.

Africa’s first carbon-neutral bank, continued to demonstrate its commitment to water sustainability as a key participant and host of the Water Roundtable side event at the COP 17.

South Africa is generally considered the leader on the African continent, but not always for the right reasons. While it is deliberated that SA is Africa’s economic and industrial powerhouse, it has come with a price – South Africa is by far the worst polluter and GHG (greenhouse gas) emitter on the continent.

Fuel made from wood could become a competitive commercial alternative to fuel made from corn by 2020 if the wood biofuel industry is supported, according to a new University of British Columbia study.

If CO2 had significant commercial value, that is, it was used extensively by industry for a large number of purposes, then fossil fuel power plant operators might be easily convinced that capturing and selling the greenhouse gas would make more sense than letting it go into the atmosphere: If there were profits in smoke stack CO2, then they wouldn’t let it go up in, well, smoke.

Hybrid cars, powered by a mixture of gas and electricity, have become a practical way to "go green" on the roads. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University are applying the term "hybrid" to power plants as well.

Over 100 civil society organizations from Africa and around the world sent a letter earlier this week to African negotiators attending the UN global climate talks in Durban, calling for them to reject efforts to place agricultural soils within a carbon market.